IRA is not yet in its "new mode"

By Brian Rowan
BBC Northern Ireland security editor

The IRA is in the political dock right now - accused of being behind the massive robbery at the Northern Bank in December and of scuppering hopes of any new deal in Northern Ireland, certainly in the short term.

This is the same IRA that only weeks before the Belfast bank raid indicated a willingness to move into a "new mode" and put all of its weapons beyond use - the republican contribution in trying to achieve a comprehensive political agreement.

IRA figures had to explain and sell its contribution

Now, something very different is being suggested. There is talk of splits and of a threat to the ceasefire.

But is this really what is going on inside the IRA and the broader republican family? My sources say: "No".

"I would have heard," one told me. "I've heard nothing. (Are there) internal problems? Yes. Splits? No. People leaving? Yes. Anger? Yes."

All of this can apparently be traced back to the political negotiations of last year and to the contribution the IRA said it was prepared to make to secure a deal.

That deal would include power-sharing with Ian Paisley's Democratic Unionists, sweeping security changes, more progress on policing and an end to "physical force republicanism" as part of the IRA's "new mode".

Sinn Fein's Martin McGuinness's reputation is on the line

Gerry Adams and Martin McGuinness negotiated that IRA contribution at the very top of the organisation, inside the "army council".

But other senior IRA figures then had to explain and sell that contribution on the ground, and it is here that the problems have emerged.

Not because there is a push for a return to "war", but because there is a view that the IRA offered too much - went too far - both in spelling out the organisation's future and what it intended to do with its guns.

'Another negotiation'

Was this an IRA pandering to Paisley without a guaranteed outcome to the political negotiations? Was this an IRA about to be "fooled" for a second time by another unionist leader?

The IRA still remembers the decommissioning of October 2003 - the weapons that were put beyond use as part of an apparent deal with David Trimble, only for that deal to stall.

The "new mode" and the complete decommissioning offered at the end of last year, was not enough for the DUP.

Ian Paisley wanted photographic proof of disarmament

Ian Paisley wanted photographic proof of the weapons being put beyond use and suggested the IRA should humiliate itself - should wear "sackcloth and ashes".

The deal of all deals was not going to be done on those terms, and another negotiation in which the IRA had declared its hand had failed.

In the fall-out there has unquestionably been a hint of "I told you so" and all of this has to be managed inside the IRA - managed by some of the organisation's most senior figures who have put their IRA reputations on the line.

"The management team got roasted right across the country," one source told me.

But, however difficult it might be to settle the IRA organisation, no-one is suggesting that ending the ceasefire or letting off a bomb would be a good idea.

'Accepted that denial'

But what about the bank robbery? Was letting it happen the IRA's way of "settling its troops" and calming things internally?

Was this a kind of "reverse humiliation", was it the IRA refusing to wear "sackcloth and ashes"?

No-one in the republican community will enter into this discussion.

IRA still remembers the decommissioning of October 2003

They say the republican position is clear.

The IRA has denied any involvement in the bank raid, and the Sinn Fein leadership has accepted that denial.

So, the reputations of "P O'Neill", Gerry Adams and Martin McGuinness are on the line.

And it will not matter if the police produce the most convincing evidence that the IRA was behind this robbery, the republican position will not change.

So, where does all of this leave the political process? Not for the first time, it has been left jogging on the spot.

More elections are coming, and, unquestionably, so too are more negotiations.

The IRA is not yet in that "new mode" and internally the job of calming continues. That is very different from the suggestion that the ceasefire is under threat.